I Show not your Face but your Heart's Desire
by BlutengelHates
Summary: an OS I wrote in French in 2016 about Severus Snape's night wanderings.


Here it is. I translated my first piece of fanfiction (being French and writing in French, it's quite a challenge to me even if I currently speak English). Therefore, if you read mistakes, don't be shy telling me so, I really need to know them :)

By the way, here is my OS on the Harry Potter universe, as I wanted to write about Snape, a character I find interesting to explore, and I wanted to improve this character before starting a short story then a whole series (still in French and in-progress). Enjoy your reading!

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 OS -I show not your face but your heart's desire

That reflection was more painful for him to stand than any other, nevertheless the man wanted to glare at it on a regular base, as if he were attracted by what he watched in it, trying to commandingly shut up all the pain that resulted from it.

The very first time he came to there, he did not display a fair game. He had terribly feared it because he did not know what would happen to him whenever he would gaze at it. He was afraid of his deepest and most controlled desires would hurl to him just to taunt him. Then he hid his shadow eyes with his fingers that had long been exposed to dangerous products, like a child would do so, and he stood up with a hesitant pace, his stomach battered by fear, his body shaken by nervous electric discharges. He finally moved apart his fingers, step by step, until he would have a complete sight on the reflection.

That was as if someone had brutally ripped his limbs one by one, intimated him to stamp on them before giving them back to him in a heap and approximately resewn him. He had not slept then, haunted by it, this reflection still on his retina, the whole scene played again and again in his mind. Forever haunted, but he wanted so much to watch and re watch this reflection, like a drug person who would suffer from a forced withdrawal. The call was stronger than his cold and calculating reason. He would sigh, mumble, sometimes cry, yell from despair in occasional occasions when he would be all alone in his dungeons, that would make him lose the track because he could not resist that much before he would come back to it. That was living vicariously things that he had not realized, situations whose he had not taste the sweetness. That was having a heavy heart by regrets that piled themselves all along that winding road his life had made.

Again on that night, he had given in his desire to come through what his heart mostly and deeply desired. The castle corridors were silent. Only came to his ears the sound of his cape swinging around his ankles by the rhythm of his steps. How lucky he was, as he never met neither ghosts nor colleague. He did not want to lose time. It was really unpleasant to constantly lie to anyone when it was not his day to patrol and the aisle he normally had to survey.

Despite of everything he sighed. Lying. He only lied. At that period of his life, he had so melted everything that anything was sure and clear: his decisions, his free thoughts, his own choices, his desires… But, if he looked properly, there was _one_ he kept for himself and only himself and that night, he came to live it vicariously.

He soon arrived to his final point and stood before a high and large mirror. He had no longer hesitated since the time he would gaze at this specific reflection and stared right in front of himself. Per se, his own reflection did not change. He stayed the same professor Snape: tall, his greasy black hair falling to his shoulders, his severe and stern, bony and white as a sheet face because of his constant indoors way of life in the dungeons while preparing potions and remedies, still wearing black clothes… No, one would have to go over what he first sees to note a difference.

Snape rolled up his left sleeve. Everything had its origin in that simple gesture. In front of him, the mirror Snape had no Dark Mark on his exposed limb. Bared, with no stain, the symbol of wrong that was given to him, a symbol of a rallying of people from the worst assassination. Even if he had been used to it (or its absence, whoever he watched), the Potions Master could not emotionally stand it anymore. His legs shook before they gave way; and the man could only manage to end up on his knees. His eyes burnt, restrained tears on the verge of them. He blocked his breathing, as he gazed at his right, where there was a free space in the offered tableau.

Aside his mirror self stood a woman who had come and leaned to him. She softly put her hand on his arm. She was smiling at him, her smile drawn on her lips as well as her eyes. She then knelt close to him and put her head against Snape's shoulder, her messy auburn hair contrasted with the black of his robes.

Snape did not dare to move, during a long couple of minutes. The necessary time for him to enjoy and admire the woman's beauty, to like the warmth of her contact. He slowly looked after her hand with his. He only met the fabric of his cloth. Tears finally freed themselves and rolled down his cheeks. Every night when he came back to the Erised mirror, Snape only worsened the wounds that teared his heart apart. Even though he perfectly was aware of that magical object dangers and what he watched was unreal, but, as far as it was all about Lily Evans, who joined his mirror self, he forgot everything about the warnings, because he could smell her perfume, hear her voice, read through her expressions and gestures that he missed so much. He knew her perfectly. It was about coming back to the past for a short time, it was about living what he had wished for years. So that if he had to suffer more, if he had not to mourn his love, Snape took the risk to contemplate her in a regular basis thanks to the mirror.

Through bitter tears his bitter lips drew a smile, a painful smile, still a smile. He only was himself, complete, human while she was on his side. Neither a Half-Blood nor a Slytherin, even less the Marauders' favorite scapegoat or a Death Eater… No. Lily Evans gave him back everything one deprived him of or forced him to deny. As far as his survival was concerned, because he also made mistakes and tried his best to redeem himself, Snape refused to let her go.


End file.
